Central Notes: Royals, Hanson, Tigers, Cardinals

The Royals will not be sellers at the deadline, Yahoo! Sports' Jeff Passan tweets. The Royals are still seven games back in the AL Central, but they've won six games in a row. Passan indicates that if the Royals deal pitchers Ervin Santana or Luke Hochevar, they would want to receive players who can help immediately. Here are more notes from the Central divisions.

• The removal of Pirates infield prospect Alen Hanson from a game with Class A+ Bradenton Sunday triggered speculation that Hanson had been traded, but Hanson's agency, LA Sports Management, tweets that Hanson had simply been promoted to Double-A Altoona. It does not appear, then, that a trade is imminent.
• Although the Tigers may trade for relief help, they appear happy with Joaquin Benoit at closer and Drew Smyly in their eighth-inning role, MLB.com's Jason Beck writes. "All I can say is that we feel very comfortable in the ninth and eighth innings with Benoit and Smyly. I don’t know where you’re really going to go out and improve that significantly," says GM Dave Dombrowski. The GM also echoes comments from other front office executives who say this year's market is a particularly tough one for buyers, since few teams identify as sellers at this point.
• The Cardinals currently do not appear likely to make big moves at Wednesday's deadline, but ESPN's Jayson Stark tweets that they might actually trade one of their relievers. Stark notes that, in particular, teams have asked about the Cardinals' bullpen lefties. The left-handers currently in the Cards' bullpen are Kevin Siegrist, Randy Choate and Marc Rzepczynski.